I Am Yours
by Tayhlia
Summary: The heart loves who it pleases...


**AN:** Don't own anything, wish I did then I could be rich and have Fenris all to myself

* * *

'Cause your presence still lingers here  
And it won't leave me alone  
These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase

My Immortal-Evanescence

* * *

"So you're just going to sit around waiting for him," Anders snapped.

Laela Hawke glanced around, silently pointing out that they were currently walking along the Wounded Coast. "It's not that simple," she said softly

"It is," he touched her arm, stalling their steps. "He was an idiot to leave you," She bowed her head, heart aching. "Why? Why wait for someone who will never understand you? Never love you," Anders whispered. "Not like I can," Her head shot up, looking the mage in the eyes. "Is it so hard to believe? I love you, Hawke." His hand reached up and touched her face, barely seeing her recoil slightly. "I love you."

She swallowed hard. "Anders,"

Suddenly he was kissing her, his lips slamming against hers with a thirst she had not experienced since the night with Fenris. But it was wrong. Unlike with Fenris, all Laela felt with Anders was the mechanics, the sensation of nerves, lips touching lips. The void in her heart left by Fenris remained empty.

After a moment, Anders pulled away. "Be with me," he begged. "I'll care for you like that mage-hater could never do,"

Laela looked down. "I can't love you, Anders." His grip on her arm started to tighten. She blinked back the tears burning in her eyes. "I can't give you my heart when it already belongs to another,"

"He hates you!" Anders exploded, not noticing a tear trickle down her cheek. "You are a mage! And he'd sooner kill us all! How can you care for him?" He started to shake her. "How can you love him?" She couldn't answer. "He'll kill you, Hawke. Don't you see that? That wolf will kill you and every other mage with you one day," Shoving her away as though she had burned him, Anders stormed off in the direction of Kirkwall leaving Hawke behind.

Staring after him, she tried to stem the ache in her chest. Turning she began to walk, she was halfway down the coast before she realized she couldn't out run her pain. Collapsing onto a rock jutting over the water, tears began to fall; tears for her heart, tears for Anders' proclamation, tears for the understanding that she loved someone who just as soon kill her.

It wasn't right.

Her mother always told her the heart loved whom it wanted and the person rarely had control over it. Laela had never truly believed her, like everything else in life, she wanted to believe that everyone had a choice. Now she knew there were some things that were senseless. She was in love with a man who abandoned her bed and chose to torture her by remaining at her side; a man who wore the crest of her family name on his belt but turned cold in his interaction with her. How could the wounds of her heart heal when he was haunting in her life so much?

The night after he had left she could not sleep in her bed. The sheets had been changed and laundered, her body scrubbed, no physical essence of him remained and yet he lingered. She hadn't been able to sleep in the bed they had shared since that night, curling up in the padded windowsill or on the couch in the library. How was time to erase him from her mind when everything reminded her of him?

And now, Anders, the stupid, stupid mage demanding answers; begging her to love him. She hugged herself tightly, her fingers rubbing the spot on her arm that he had bruised with his grip. Was Anders right? Would Fenris kill her?

"Hawke?" a confused vibrato came from the path behind her.

Laela stilled. She knew that voice.

"What are you doing here alone?" Fenris' feet crunched on the loose ground as he came toward her. All she could do was tighten her arms around her knees, unable even to wipe the remnants of tears off her face. He was kneeling next to her. "It is not safe to be alone out here,"

"You are," she whispered softly.

He regarded her with surprise before the elf peered closer to her. "Are you well?" She didn't answer. "You were crying,"

Laela looked at him, or tried to. The moment she met his soulful green eyes, a stab of pain tore through her heart and she dropped her gaze. Her eyes found the Amell crest still affixed to his belt. Why did he wear it? Why when he left her?

"Hawke?" he called her name again.

Swallowing hard, she shook her head, turning back to the view of the water. "Is there something you needed?"

"I—no," Fenris was caught off guard. "I had come to escort a merchant to a caravan, I was on my way back to the city," She didn't respond. "Hawke,"

Closing her eyes, she tried not to be aware of how he settled on the rock beside her, his piercing look nearly tangible on her skin. Taking a deep breath, Hawke slowly let it out. She could smell him in the air, the scent of lyrium mixed with earth. Another piece of her heart felt as though it was breaking, being this close to him but still so far.

His hand covered hers, causing Laela to jerk. Her heart pounded in her chest. The first touch he had initiated since that night, why was he touching her? He nodded to her arm and she looked.

"You're injuring yourself,"

Several crescent shaped crevices were skinned into her arm, not deep enough to draw blood, but enough to show how tightly she had been gripping her arms. Laela relaxed her hand, hoping and dreading that Fenris would stop touching her.

He didn't move.

Closing her eyes, she shook her head. "You're killing me," She could feel him go still. "I never thought it would be love that would destroy me," Laela said bitterly, opening her eyes and looking at him. He seemed stunned. "And you don't even know," Her hand unconsciously clenched his. "I feel like I'm unraveling at the seams, Fenris" She met his gaze. "You torture me,"

Fenris pulled back as if scalded.

Reaching for him, Laela ignore the look on his face. He did not know what to do, stay or flee and it was written all over him. Removing the crest she held it in her hand. "You left me," her hand was shaking. "But you remain," Tears were filling her eyes again. "You wear this as though I branded you." Clenching her hand around the crest she felt its edges dig painfully into her palm. "Do you hate me so much that you think me like the magisters?"

"I do not hate you." He responded immediately.

"Then why?" Her body shook. "Why do you stay? Why do you wear my family's heraldry? Why do you look at me like that?" Dropping the item to the ground she covered her face with her hands. "I can't lose myself, not now. Not with everyone who depends on me," Laela looked up at him. "Why do you stay?"

"Command me to leave and I shall,"

She looked as though he slapped her. "Command?" she whispered. "Command? Fenris I will never command you to do anything!" Laela turned away from him. "I am not a magister I don't wish to own you," Closing her eyes, she let out a breath. "I don't wish to hurt you."

"What do you wish?" his voice was hesitant.

"To love you," the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Swallowing hard, a tear ran down her cheek. "I can't pretend to understand what it was like to remember everything and then lose it again. But I know what it's like to have the world, to have everything only to have it ripped away,"

Gazing out over the water, Laela watched a bird swoop in the air. "For one night, it didn't matter." Once she started she found she couldn't stop. "The problems of the city, of my friends, none of it mattered. I had you," Cringing on how it sounded, she bowed her head. "And you wanted me," Two tears made twin trails down her cheeks.

"Laela," her first name fell from his lips. He gently turned her head to face him, wiping her tears away. "I am yours,"

She blinked. "I don't understand,"

He tugged a scrap of red fabric from his breastplate. Recognition hit her like a ton of bricks. It was the ribbon from her corset; it had torn the night they had been together. Why did he—her eyes shot to the crest and then at him. "I am yours," he said softly.

Her fingers traced the edge of the fabric. "But you left, you," she trembled. "I don't understand,"

Fenris ducked his head. "The chains are broken but are you truly free?" He whispered. Laela recognized it as something Flemeth had said. Her brow furrowed. "I am chained to the past and I do not know how long it will take for me to be free of it," She met his green eyes, hating how they tugged at her heart. "I cannot ask you to wait," He gave her smoldering look that caused heat to spread through her. "But I remain yours,"

Laela's lips parted her mind racing. Slowly she tugged the red fabric. Fenris twitched a masked look of resignation on his face. Wrapping it around his wrist she secured the knot. Her fingers tangled with his hand.

"For as long as you wear this, know that I am yours,"


End file.
